


The World's Betrayal

by Rose Argent (roseargent)



Category: Radiant Historia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 16:13:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17103836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseargent/pseuds/Rose%20Argent
Summary: Stocke has betrayed everyone he cares about, for the sake of the world. But is there any hope for the future he's made?





	The World's Betrayal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quicksilver_ink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quicksilver_ink/gifts).



> I've always wanted to write something about the bad end where Stocke becomes an assassin for Granorg, so when I saw you requesting that very thing I was thrilled. 
> 
> This is only a glimpse of that timeline, but I hope it's one you enjoy!

Every day, Stocke considered abandoning this timeline, and every day he decided to give it just one more day--one more day for something good to come of Raul's blood on his hands, one more day to make the look of betrayal in Sonja's eyes worth it. Every day the war and the desertification continued and it was all for nothing.

Selvan and Dias had new jobs for him only occasionally, now; Alistel had no great heroes left for him to kill. Rosch and Viola were dead through no direct action of Stocke's, fallen on battlefields as they fought a losing war. Heiss disappeared into thin air with Alistel's loss, though Stocke couldn't imagine that he was dead. He had no idea what had happened to Raynie and Marco--they could be dead in a back alley somewhere, nameless agents appearing in no accounting of the war dead, or they could be alive and well, ready to put a blade in his back at the first opportunity. 

No, most of the targets Stocke went after these days were Granorgan nobles who threatened Dias and Selvan's hold on the country. Stocke had no doubt that some day they'd ask him to kill Protea, and that would be the day they had no further use for him except as a convenient and very dead scapegoat. 

"So deep in thought." Dias leaned in over Stocke's shoulder, much too close, his hair brushing against Stocke's neck. "You didn't even hear me come in." A hand touched the small of Stocke's back, then was gone before Stocke could be bothered to react. "It makes a man want to take advantage."

Most of the time Stocke had no idea if Dias meant the things he said, or if it was all part of his bizarre game of flirting with him. Today he had no trouble on that front--no swordsman of Dias's calibre could be so delusional as to think Stocke hadn't heard him coming, dismissed him as a threat, and chose to ignore him. Ignoring him didn't seem to be working, sadly, and every now and then Stocke considered giving in just to see if Dias would get bored of the game once it seemed he'd won.

"Dias." Selvan's voice held only the mildest hint of censure, and an undercurrent of nervousness that Stocke was probably not supposed to hear. Dias pulled away with a disappointed sigh that Stocke was definitely supposed to hear. 

Stocke rose from his seat on the windowsill and turned to face his employers. "Do you have a job for me?" He couldn't say he was looking forward to it, exactly, but getting out of his own thoughts for a while might be a good thing. Right up until the part where he had to murder someone who probably didn't deserve it. 

"Not of the usual sort. You're free to refuse, if it does not suit." No sign of his earlier unease was visible on Selvan's face, but there was something in his eyes that Stocke didn't like. Was this the mission that was supposed to wash their hands of their pet assassin, come sooner than Stocke had expected?

"He's certainly going to refuse if you keep making it sound so dire, Selvan." The smile Dias gave Stocke was a mix of pity and amusement, like he knew what Stocke was thinking. Stocke looked away, unsettled by the idea that he might be so transparent before these men. Or was he simply of so little use to them now that they expected any drooling idiot to see the writing on the wall? Neither prospect spoke well of Stocke's odds of salvaging this timeline.

The unpleasant something in Selvan's eyes was wiped away by annoyance at Dias, and he gestured stiffly to the nearest chairs. "It's a more complicated situation than the usual, not necessarily a more dangerous one." If Selvan guessed the direction of Stocke's thoughts, not a hint of it reached his face. 

Some of the tension in the room eased once they were all seated, though not so much that Stocke would have turned his back on either of them. 

"One of our agents in Cygnus was returning with what we believe to be vital intelligence. He was discovered, however, and had to hand it off to a junior agent very suddenly. That junior agent has been dodging pursuit ever since, and finally had to go to ground near the border. We need someone with both stealth and combat experience to retrieve either the agent, or at the very least the information he carries." Selvan's expression darkened throughout the explanation--he was clearly unhappy with every aspect of the situation. 

It was an interesting job, and not at all what Stocke expected. It was too wasteful for a trap when they could just as easily send him to an ambush within the city. Was this a test, instead? If he tried to eliminate the agent and take the information to sell to the highest bidder, they'd know he was ready to turn on them. Could it be that simple? It seemed too obvious, too easy, but that could be the point--they suspected him, and were telling him it was his last chance to prove his loyalty. 

"I'll do it." If nothing else, travelling to Cygnus would let him see the extent of the desertification himself. Maybe that would help him decide once and for all if this timeline was worth the blood he'd spilled.

~~

"I wish you wouldn't toy with him so obviously." Selvan knew by now it was too much to ask that Dias not toy with the assassin _at all_ , but it made the skin between his shoulder-blades itch every time Dias did it. 

Dias laughed and refilled Selvan's wine glass. "I know you do. But he's so very lovely. What if he said yes, someday?"

Selvan choked on his wine, shuddering. "The man is made of stone. If he did ever say yes I'd fully expect it to be the steel blade, and not the 'sword' you want, in bed with us. You'd have better luck seducing the actual sword, I rather suspect."

The reckless light in Dias's eyes chilled Selvan to the bone. The man knew no caution, no sense, when his blood was hot. "It might be worth it."

"Enough of that." Selvan drained the wine glass and put it down just a shade too firmly.

The wild look in Dias's eyes softened, and he reached across the table to smooth the lines between Selvan's brows. "A poor jest. I would not play so with my own life. I merely like to look, and to imagine."

Closing his eyes, Selvan leaned into Dias's touch. "I like it ill, trusting him with this." Selvan had never warmed to the assassin, not after the way he came into their service--a man who has betrayed his master once will do it again. If Selvan could only divine why he had changed sides in the first place, if he could understand what drove the man, he might rest easier. All these months of digging for information, and his agents had come up with nothing useful--the man known as Stocke had worked for Alistel, an agent of their intelligence service, and had an odd amount of notoriety for a man in such a role. He was flashy, unstoppable, apparently incorruptible until the very moment he changed sides in the middle of an assassination attempt. 

"There was no one else. Not on such short notice. We examined every other option."

Sadly true. Their own intelligence agents tended to the more... typical: men and women of the shadows, able with a knife in the dark when necessary but by no means capable of cutting their way through a squad of enemy troops. Extractions of this level of risk were rare enough that they'd simply never seen the need for a team dedicated to handling them. Within their own borders he would simply send Dias and his troops, but across the border it was another matter. For now. Soon there would be no more borders--all would belong to Granorg.

Dias's hand withdrew, and Selvan opened his eyes to see his lover pushing his chair back and standing, his own glass of wine still untouched. "In any case, he trusts us so little I imagine he thinks it a test of some sort."

If Dias believed it to be so, Selvan could only take his word for it. He was adept in many areas, but when it came to understanding men of the sword he deferred to Dias's deeper knowledge. So, Stocke likely believed the intelligence he was retrieving to be false, and not worth selling or trading to the enemy, but he also likely believed his period of employment to be nearing its end, one way or another. "Will he return from this mission?"

"That, I don't know. If we still have something he wants--and you know as well as I that money was never what he was after--he'll return. If not, someday we will face him again as an enemy." 

The look on Dias's face as he spoke shocked Selvan; he'd never seen Dias's confidence in his own swordsmanship shaken, but now Dias's eyes said that if he faced Stocke on a battlefield he was unsure which of them would survive. When had that changed? Not the day Stocke attempted the assassination, Dias had shown no real fear for his life then. What had Dias seen since then that unsettled him so? "Is he truly such a monster?"

Surprise wiped the uncertainty from Dias's eyes. "Monster? I suppose so, if you mean only his skill." His lips quirked into a sad smile. "I wouldn't face him alone. As much as I would like to test myself against him, the outcome is too uncertain."

A monster is no way but skill. Perhaps that was exactly what was so unsettling about Stocke--he seemed so little like the kind of man who would willingly become an assassin. For all that Selvan called him stone, he was not a cold man, exactly; he was quiet, yes, unmoved by greed or hedonistic pleasures, but driven by some fiercely personal, unseen current. "I would feel better if we knew anything about him." An old topic, but one Selvan came back to again and again.

"How someone dressed in bright red can have moved through the world so like a ghost, I will never know." 

A memory of Stocke's profile lit by the sunset's glow flashed before Selvan's mind's eye, leaving an afterimage of unease in its wake. Who had the man reminded him of, in that moment? "He's quite solid for a ghost." 

Dias's eyes lit with amusement and he rubbed the hand that had touched Stocke's back. "Oh, very."

"Back on that, are you?"

"I'm sure I can be turned to other topics." Dias smiled wickedly, taking Selvan's hand and dragging him towards the bed. "Given sufficient incentive."

Selvan followed without resistance, and let his lover's clever hands wipe away his worries, for a time.

~~

The agent and his information were safely delivered to a military outpost some distance into Granorg, but Stocke himself never returned. The morning Selvan received the news, he found himself standing at the window Stocke had occupied that last evening. He remembered again the sight of Stocke's face, and the unsettling feeling of almost having grasped something important came to him, along with the ominous taste of sand on the wind.


End file.
